IchNiiSan
by CynicalWorks
Summary: Emotion would drive them mad, as the village swalloed their all three chapters.


I Hide and Seek

"This isn't the way." the blond-haired Kyo mumbled as he followed his twin through the forest.

"I know what I'm doing."

"Could have fooled me, you said that two hours ago." His brother whirled on him, sending his hair shimmering through the light, "Would you like to lead on then?" Kyo held up his hands in mock defense, "You're doing a fine job Niko."

Niko scoffed and kicked at the dirt. Around his neck the lyrics of Dir en Grey's "Aoi Tsuki" blared from his headphones. Their car had been headed uptown when a tire blew, sending them into the forest to look for some help. Niko cursed the back roads Kyo always talked him into taking.

Kyo shook his Nokia cell phone, "Dead as hell."

"Maybe you should learn to charge things."

"I did!"

"…Sure." Niko looked back up the worn path, and something flashed in front of vision.

_Red._

"Kyo! Up ahead!" Niko ran towards the thing he saw, hoping it was some sign of someone.

"Hey! Wait up!" Kyo stumbled after him, wondering what the fuck had gotten him worked up.

Niko came to a stop in front of a large dead-looking tree. The path seemed to end here, everything seemed to just end at the tree. A twinge of sudden pain hit his left eye and he reached up to the patch that covered it. A wave of memory swept him in, and he was back in the doctors white office.

"_A tumor…at the base of your optic nerve….called Melanocytoma. Usually these are benign, but this one is a rare exception. We're going to have to remove your eye."_

Niko had cried at these words, a procedure called enucleation had been preformed; basically the removal of his left eye. An implant made of coral was placed in the now empty socket, but the muscles would cramp everyone once in a while- something Kyo worried about more than he did. Yet two weeks later another tumor was discovered behind his right eye, and soon he would be rendered blind.

_Blind at twenty-two._ Niko placed his hand against the rough bark as tears slipped down his face, and jumped when Kyo hugged him roughly around the waist.

"I'll be your eyes." Kyo whispered and Niko diverted his attention to the bottom of the tree. There was a space, big enough to fit through, he thought he saw…light.

"Look, I bet you could fit through there."

"Why would you want to? It's dark."

"I want to see what's on the other side."

"But-"

"I want to see everything I can, while I can!" Niko yelled suddenly and shoved Kyo from him. Kyo let out a soft cry as he watched Niko slip down into the hole.

"It doesn't feel right."

Niko slipped quickly out of the underground hole, hand reaching out for the light source. It was a crimson butterfly, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He followed it almost unaware of the strange place he had stepped into.

It seemed to be a feudal village, small with complex houses and shrines. He continued to follow the butterfly (there were three of them now) down towards a little white shanty in the distance.

"Niko? Niko!" Kyo rubbed his arms, the hair at the back of his neck refusing to go down. This place frightened him, made his stomach churn with anxiety. He believed that he had read about it somewhere, yes, a village in the forest- a place where you can never leave. Niko had always laughed at him for reading those kinds of books, but he had always thought them true.

Looking around, he felt very small. The decrepit buildings seemed to leer at him with unseen eyes, and he walked dead center of the road.

"Niko?" So many structures, but his voice never echoed.

The butterflies led to a small door and disappeared behind it. Niko was about to open it when he heard a small sound.

_Is someone crying?_ It seemed to be coming from the shanty itself, Niko walked up to it's cracking white paint and saw that a large lock with a sigil had been placed on it. He knocked, "Is someone in there?"

"Please, leave now." A boy's voice answered, sounding uncertain.

"Hold on, I'll get you out."

Despite the boy's protests, Niko looked around on the ground and found a large rock. Aiming it high over his head, he brought it down on the lock until it broke into two pieces.

"Fuck sigils."

Niko tossed the door open, and heard his I-Pod go silent. Figuring it to be dead, he looked into the gloom.

"Why, why did you come in?" A boy dressed in a shabby white robe stared up at him from behind a few pillars of wood. His hair was stark white- his young face seemed to hold such sadness, it drew Niko closer.

"I wanted to help you."

"No one can help me; help yourself by leaving." Behind the boy was an open window with bars over it. Through them Niko could see the butterflies.

"The butterflies…led me here."

The boy stood, and came towards him- placed his hands on Niko's hips and stared straight into his brown eye.

"You're going blind, aren't you?"

"How did you know?" The boy's hand now roamed his face- the touch was light and ethereal.

"I can see it in you, the sickness…the same sickness in my heart." The boy tapped his chest with Niko's finger, "In a way, I was blind too."

Niko didn't quiet understand, then boy kissed him, and he saw.

_A ritual…Altar Twins…the sacrifice that failed. A woman laughing over strewn bodies…a rope…a cell…the blind ones tore out their own eyes._

Niko's head spun and he tore away from the boy with a shout, "Itsuki!"

"Yes."

"Why? What did I see just now?"

"Your fate, if you do not leave." Itsuki still held him close and realization his Niko like a brick. Behind this boy was noose- he had hung himself.

Itsuki was dead.

II Repent and Forgive

Kyo had turned the corner when he saw Niko running from a small white shanty. Relief flooded through him, "Niko!" he stopped short at the look of terror on his twin's face.

"What is it?"

"We need to leave, now."

"A-alright." Kyo was taken aback by his brother's expression; he hadn't looked this scared since they had found another tumor. He grabbed his brother's hand, and they were running, running back to the tree. A deep fog had descended, and Kyo's heart sank when he heard Niko cry out.

"It's gone! The tree is gone!"

"There has to be another way out…has to be." Kyo didn't want to show it but he could barely contain his own shaking. A groan came from behind him. Slowly he turned to see a man covered in ropes, horridly deformed and reaching out for him. A scream tore from his lips, and he ran into the nearest house- slamming the scream behind him.

_Oh shit, Niko!_

He heard it, his brother screaming, and Kyo tried to pry the door back open- but it was as it someone was holding it shut. Then cold hands descended around his neck and his own voice joined Niko's.

The girl who held him in her grasp laughed, "My place, **you will take my place!**" she shrieked at him as he tore at her clammy flesh that wasn't there.

Niko ran- ran back to the white place he had met Itsuki, but a dark thing blocked his way. He stumbled and fell, the thing reaching for him with shapeless hands. He knocked them away and ran down, down a path that led to a larger house. Niko burst inside the door, out of breath and wedged himself in the midst of the rotting kimonos, waiting for the fear to vanish. His I-Pod burst back into song, making him hit his head against the wall.

_Sweeet….Emo-shun…_

"Oh, how fitting, Mr. Stephan Tyler." The feeling he had had gone away and he crept out of his hiding place.

_Gotta find Kyo._

Something hit his foot, a book. Most of it was damp and smeared but he could make out a part about a twin sacrifice to appease the Hellish Abyss. The place he was in was supposedly "All God's Village", the ritual had gone wrong when one twin ran away, and the other went crazy and killed everyone. Niko vaguely remembered Kyo reading him something about this (he hadn't been listening much) and how people often disappeared in this place or were "spirited away".

"One twin kills the other…perhaps this place isn't so dead." He though of Itsuki's warning, to leave as quickly as possible before they were found. But, how does one fight a ghost?

Slowly, he left the house and crept down the street. He though he could hear his brother, but where? A sound from behind him, he turned quickly.

It was a flashlight. Not wanting to know where it came from, he picked it up and shined it ahead- into a mass of butterflies. They danced around him, shimmering in the light and bouncing off one another. He felt himself walk forward, deeper, towards the forest.

Kyo awoke dressed in a white robe. He was in a dark cave filled with the sound of chanting. But he could see no people making the sound. Looking down, he found a red cord tied round his waist.

"No…" A moan escaped his mouth, he knew where he was.

_The Altar Twins. I'm the next sacrifice! But wait…one twin has to kill the other…and I can't be killed if Niko's not here. I just have to stay away from Niko…find a way out of here._

"You would abandon your own brother?" the girl's voice mused, and he screwed his eyes shut.

"Sae?"

"Yes. Everything you thought was right. You are the next to die, for the village, for my twin, for my own soul." Her voice seemed to rise above him and on instinct his eyes flew open.

Sae was a mass of blood and corpse, a thing that could no longer be called human. She flew above him, chanting, calling, her voice like nails on a chalkboard. Kyo screamed.

Niko walked in a daze, the butterflies seemed to shield him. He walked past decayed and rotten bodies, children who had been lost in the darkness of a failed rite of passage. Suddenly, Itsuki was beside him.

"You can't go to him!"

"I have you save him."

"No, once you see him, you will go mad. You will end his life!"

"I have no choice; I love him."

And Itsuki faded.

Niko faced a dark hole in the earth, and walked steadily ahead.

III I Am

They dressed him in a white robe, tied the red around his waist and led him to his screaming brother. Their stinking flesh tore at his senses, and now the world seemed to move slower.

"_So we can build a perfect garden…"_

Another song rang out from his white headphones, but Niko only heard the vibrations the resonated off the walls. His hands ached to be around his brother's throat.

He was going to save him. "Niko! Run away from me!" Kyo screamed and kicked but Sae held him, held him next to the dark hole in the earth. Niko staggered forward, dropping the flashlight.

"You know I love you…Kyo."

"Then why kill me? Why kill me!" Kyo sobbed hysterically as his brother knelt next to in front of him.

"I'm going to set you free." His pale lips moved toward his twin's, and he entered his mouth gracefully. Kyo was rendered motionless, his heart in his chest- he was afraid, yes, but passion now drove through his veins.

_What am I doing? What am I doing! Stop me please, Kyo!_

Niko seemed to move on his own; his hands formed around Kyo's neck and began to press down. As his mind howled in agony, he felt his own brother's life slip away, but couldn't break his grasp, could only go tighter- tighter until the spine snapped. He felt it then, Kyo was gone, down in the pit with the other spirits. The black hands reached up an out to take his body, but now Niko held onto it like a life preserver.

"**You said you would be my eyes!**" He screamed, and the hands pulled- Kyo's hands ripped off with a meaty ripping sound.

Niko screamed, his vocal chords snapping and at that moment, his vision was gone.

He stumbled into the rock wall, some how away from the moaning pit and into a clearing. His mouth gaped openly, still trying to screamed, still feeling blood on his hands and slicking down his torso. Niko ran forward, bashing into trees, past branches that ripped his clothes from him. It seemed like miles until he stopped.

And listened.

He heard water splashing, a pond he guessed. He walked slowly until his feet touched the cold liquid. Niko smiled and held up Kyo's head to his face.

"See…my brother…you are my eyes. I can still see you, you're perfect smile." Niko grinned wider, so wide he felt that his face would break and walked deeper into the water.

He walked until the cold came up to his waist, then his chest, neck and covered his head.

He laughed, and sent up bubbles of air to the surface while his body sank deep into the darkness.

"May the madness never die."


End file.
